HIVANs core mission: HIVAN is essentially about facilitating multisectoral partnerships around HIV/AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal. Its fundamental aim is to bring together researchers, policy-makers, interventionists, service-providers and communities into meaningful and mutually rewarding alliances, aimed at addressing the multiple problems heralded by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Overview: As part of its mission of facilitating co-operation and learning in the area of HIV/AIDS, HIVAN sponsors a Job Shadow Programme between KZN workers in HIV/AIDS-related fields and partners elsewhere in South Africa and on the African continent.

The Embo region is situated South-East of Durban in Umbumbulu Magisterial District and covers the area from Umbumbulu, near the Durban South Coast, inland towards Pietermaritzburg. It is made up of five traditional authorities: Embo, Embo-Kwakhabazela, Embo-IsiMahla, Embo-Thimuni and Embo-Vumakwenza. Embo is one of the communities in which the Centre for HIV/AIDS Networking (HIVAN) has conducted HIV/AIDS activity audit.

The Bergville/Winterton area is located in the Southern Drakensberg within the Okhahlamba municipality of the uThukela Health District, KwaZulu-Natal. WorldVision South Africa is a key non-governmental organisation that is highly active in the Bergville/Winterton community through its facilitation of programmes and projects that support community responses to HIV/AIDS.

HIVAN has established a partnership with the KwaZulu-Natal CBO Network and, in particular, its Behaviour Change Programme (BCP). The BCP, being directed at implementing a wide-sweeping programme of behaviour change in communities and having representation throughout the province's eight regions, facilitates HIVAN's entry into the communities with which it engages.